windforce at 9 fps, 2.7 att/sec, net damage of…
748.24 dmg/sec…
compare to…
so buriza and hellrack still kick the windforce’s ass, especially considering we’re giving Windforce an extra 9% ias over what we’re giving the other two. Even with 292% total ias on a windforce (for 7 frame attack, 3.5 att/sec) it only manages 969.94 dmg/sec (buriza maxes out at 11 frames for 2.2 att/sec and a total of 901.46 dmg at this point).
NOW, to address your post again, the numbers ARE inherently flawed, because they don’t consider STR or DEX bonuses to damage, which are a big thing. Since a lot of the Hellrack damage is elemental, the STR/DEX bonuses won’t help it as much as they will a windforce, which may be where the windforce can pull ahead. Buriza still has a lot of physical damage though, almost 100 dmg/attack greater than windforce in physical alone, so Buriza should still be ahead unless you have a literally ridiculous amount of ias.
You’ve already figured out half the trick to dealing with Undead Stygian Dolls: Let your merc take them, since they do so little damage to mercs/summons (this also works agains suicide orcs, fire enchanted, and corpse explosion). The other half of the trick is to just not bother killing them. Their knives do hurt a bit, but not nearly as much as their explosions, and with Vigor or Holy Freeze aura active, you should be able to outrun them (my paladin has no speed at all, and first-level vigor is enough for him to just barely escape). But yeah, they are hugely annoying.
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I’ve tried the “run past them” tactic, but what always seems to happen is that, as fast as I am, I can’t quite shake them. The next thing I know, I’ve run through yet another room full of them, and now I have twice as many of them on my ass. The real problem with them, though, is when they come running in amidst other types of monsters which I’m attacking. They’ll run in when I’m just starting a Zeal, and there’s nothing I can do to avoid hitting them. Half the time, because they’re so small, I don’t even know they’re there until I see the explosion and the words “Nzappa has died”.
I’ve tried the Holy Freeze tactic, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to have the slightest effect on them. They don’t slow down one bit.
That would be cool. The guide I used suggested GA as a good armor option.
Incidentally, the reason I’m using a Defiance merc instead of a Holy Freeze merc is that the guide suggested equipping a Defiance merc with a Doom runeword weapon - so I would have both Deifance and Holy Freeze coming from the merc. I think it’s gonna take a while to find the runes for Doom, though.
I’ve tried the “run past them” tactic, but what always seems to happen is that, as fast as I am, I can’t quite shake them. The next thing I know, I’ve run through yet another room full of them, and now I have twice as many of them on my ass. The real problem with them, though, is when they come running in amidst other types of monsters which I’m attacking. They’ll run in when I’m just starting a Zeal, and there’s nothing I can do to avoid hitting them. Half the time, because they’re so small, I don’t even know they’re there until I see the explosion and the words “Nzappa has died”.
I’ve tried the Holy Freeze tactic, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to have the slightest effect on them. They don’t slow down one bit.
That would be cool. The guide I used suggested GA as a good armor option.
Incidentally, the reason I’m using a Defiance merc instead of a Holy Freeze merc is that the guide suggested equipping a Defiance merc with a Doom runeword weapon - so I would have both Deifance and Holy Freeze coming from the merc. I think it’s gonna take a while to find the runes for Doom, though.
As I posted earlier in this thread (sometime last year), you could always go with an auradin, with Might/Defiance/Holy Freeze/Fanaticism/Conviction on you and your merc (Might - merc aura, Defiance - Sanctuary runeword shield, Holy Freeze - merc Doom weapon, Fanaticism - Beast runeword weapon, Conviction - pally aura). Start collecting those runes now! (Actually, I bet a D’’ killer could accumulate Annis specifically to gather the necessary runes, no?)
You’d have to ask theckhd about that: I can kill the clone, but I lack the patience and the extra computers to find him, so I’ve only done so 8 or 10 times. But he has a Breath of the Dying, a Heart of the Oak, and an Enigma, and I think that he got the runes for those from Annihilus sales. So yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s possible.
And I’m not sure why a teslafroster would want Holy Freeze on his merc, anyway… Your own Holy Freeze aura should be better than his, and they don’t stack. True, his would be active continuously, but it seems to me that it’d be more worthwhile to go with variety.
The only reason I can think of that the Stygians would be unaffected by Holy Freeze is that HF only “pulses” once every few seconds, and the Stygs might be able to close the distance to you and get zealed in between pulses. Certainly, they’re affected normally by cold damage: I’ve frozen them in place before. About all I can suggest at this point is to be really, really careful in any area where you might find Styggies (or avoid those areas entirely).
I just got a sickening thought. Bear with me here.
That paladin and mercenary. A necro with Amp. A hammerdin with maxed concentration.
The damage shown, along with the increased damage from conviction, would be absolutely deadly to anything. What would survive, seriously? I’m not going to run the numbers again for the damage (someone else can do that), but here are the runes and gear type things you’d need, in case someone feels like amassing this wealth (as opposed to Wealth):
Bramble: 4S Armor (Ral Ohm Sur Eth); thorns, stick it on the merc.
Exile: 4S Shield (Vex Ohm Ist Dol); defiance
Beast: 5S Axe/Hammer/Scepter (Ber Tir Um Mal Lum); Fanat. I’d go with the biggest base dmg here
Doom: 5S Axe/Hammer/Polearm (Hel Ohm Um Lo Cham); Holy Freeze. Again, go for big base damage because weapon speed will be rather markedly affected by the aurae and runewords.
Stick Chains of Honor on your paladin, have him TP to the throne after getting BO (though at this point it’s pretty academic), and whip through Baal’s minions and Baal himself. You’ll need 3 Ohms, 2 Ums and some other high runes to do this. I’d guess conservatively at ten Annis for the lot. SOMEONE ELSE can figure out ideal hammerdin damage from this:D
I have a Guardian Angel that dropped during a doper baal run, next time i catch you on (maybe sometime tonight) i’ll make sure you get it. Or i could give it to chronos to put on the communal mule so you can get it from whoever you see next time you’re on.
Also, it is indeed possible to collect the runes for all of these items through anni sales, that’s how i’ve collected most of mine for BotD, 2x CoH, Enigma, HotO, and a few others. Unid annis go for ~ist to ist+um, and high runes are usually 2xist+um.
It’s also possible to get the runes by snagging hellforge Mal/Ist/Guls, but that’s arguably slower.
I should have my 4th computer up and running tonight, so hopefully i’ll be able to run 4 diablo 2 clients for our next mule rush. Once i get a cd-rom drive for the fifth computer, i could try and get that one up, but i heard a rumor that once you have 4 clients on battle.net from the same IP address, adding another one will cause you to crash the game (some sort of dupe prevention?). I’m not sure if this is true or not, maybe i’ll get a chance to test it though. I have to see if i can find a cd-rom drive for ~$10 at a store in the area – it can be as slow as a 20x most likely.
Yeah, I forgot about Bramble. And life leech isn’t a real problem, because there’s Life Tap the Exile (which I misspelled as “Sanctuary” above).
I’d actually go with a pretty quick stick for the Doom. You don’t give up too much damage, and since it’s for a merc, you’ll want to get an ethereal item for it, which boosts the damage even more.
I tested this out on SP when I was still playing, and it was, to say the least, dominant.
If you’re going to team up, a pack of multizons and accompanying rogues is honestly your best party. Coupled with a Valk on each 'zon, there’ll be so much damage in the air, it’s sick.
I saved my entire Diablo II folder including the Saved folder from a previous computer. I just installed Diablo II on this computer and dragged the Saved folder over, but apparantly, thats not where my character is hiding. How do I get her to appear on the character selection screen of my new computer???
Well, when I’ve had that problem, that’s been the solution. Not knowing your specific situation, all I can do is offer that. If it doesn’t work, management assumes no responsibility
Exactly the same as ideal hammerdin damage without the other two guys. Conviction does not lower magic resistance, and Might and Fanaticism do not increase magic damage. I think that the necromancer’s Lower Resist will work on magic resistance, but only by 40% or so, which is not very significant (especially since Blessed Hammer already ignores positive resists for demons and undead).
And while a six-aura (seven, if you also count the Spirit of Barbs from Bramble) paladin would certainly be impressive, I’m not sure it’s the best way to go for a team. You’d probably be better served by spreading the party skills out across several party members, especially since most of his aurae (all except Conviction and Fanaticism) can come from mercenaries.
One thing I noticed though. Her natural resistances are -20%. Is this something I never noticed before? Does beating Diablo lower your resistance? Did I do something wrong somewhere down the road? Any ideas?
What difficulty are you in? Your res go down by 40 in NM and 60 more in Hell. It could be (not knowing a blessed thing about your girl) that she’s in NM and has Anya in both Norm and NM but has no res from anything else.
So then Bear_Nenno’s amazon ought to have resists of -20 in NM, since pre-XP it was much more difficult to get capable resists (charms are so very useful).
